Of Dreams and Nightmares
by DW-chan
Summary: Senritsu seemed like an out-of-the-ordinary young girl, even as she had a life she was less fond of, a friend she cared for, and dreams she wanted to pursue. Together with her friend Hika, she had thought that they were off to an adventure, until it slowly melted away into a nightmare that would lead them to the Dark Sonata.
1. One: Children Must Grow Up

***HxH Disclaimer***

**Author's Notes:** I know I know I am scatter-brained. :3 I haven't abandoned my current fics; in fact, I'm overflowing with ideas that I'm not sure where to begin. xD This one has been cooking in me overnight, inspired by being exposed to "Senritsu-Before-The-Curse" fanart in DA (like Bai-Feng's fanart, for example. She's influenced a lot of my work just as I have some influence on hers. ^^ Plz to go to my profile for the link to her DA account).

Also, the name of Senritsu's friend (Hika Peisinoe) was originally conceptualized by Bai-Feng, with the aid of her friend, Kojika. So I'm actually disclaiming an OC here as well as Senritsu from the HxH canon. ^^;;

Read, review, and don't forget to send in those dark chocolate truffles. :3

* * *

Of Dreams and Nightmares  
By: DW-chan

_**One: Children Must Grow Up**_

This was an all too familiar scenario for Senritsu: being sent for by her father to the study, a dark and dank room that smelled of cigarettes and her father's cologne.

Her auburn-haired mother would sit right beside her father, but it was the man that commanded the most bearing. Everything was always too somber in times like these, _especially_ in times like these. Her parents wore dark clothes; she wore dark clothes. It was like attending the funeral of a stranger whose spirit hovered over the room, watching intently.

Her father was a grim man nearing middle age; he had married older than most men. His hair was graying at the sides; he smoked a cigar absently, just as was his fashion when he was displeased with a circumstance. He placed down the tiny glass of Scotch he had quickly brought to his lips just as Senritsu entered the study: all wood, all drapes, only lit by dim lamps that hung shadows everywhere.

"Take a seat," ordered her father. He was rarely an affectionate man who had stopped doting on his daughter as soon as she had asked hard-earned permission to become a Hunter. That was two years ago. Her father was cold, but he had become colder to her ever since. Senritsu had recently turned fifteen, and her father only showed himself for a few minutes on her birthday, dark-eyed, lips pursed, before returning to retire with his papers.

Senritsu didn't speak. She waited as her father took a sip from his Scotch again; the man whirled the dark golden liquid before setting it on the side table again. Her mother sat up straight, her usually neatly coifed hair askew, her beautiful face somehow lined with sadness. Her mother had thick, luxurious lashes, more like a doll's than a human's, and it was a feature, other than her mother's dark red hair, which Senritsu inherited.

"Senritsu," began the man.

"Yes, father," came her soft voice; vainly she tried to hide any emotion.

"You'll be sent to the University by the end of the year."

Senritsu looked up. She knew somehow that this was what the meeting will be about. It sent a tiny streak of rage in her nerves. "I thought you'd send me when I turned eighteen."

"You will not talk back at me, child."

Senritsu drew a taut breath, and calmed down a bit. However, she did not voice any apology. She continued to sit there, hands tightly curled over the skirt of her velvet burgundy dress.

"Your father and I talked about this," her mother interjected in a voice unlike Senritsu's—it was a feminine voice, but it was forceful. "We'd rather send you now before—"

"—Before I get drowned in my music." It was a statement, not a question on Senritsu's part as she finished her mother's sentence. Her mother frowned. Senritsu didn't want to assert open defiance at that moment as she knew that she would be tired from all this even as she simply sat there. She once again cast her eyes down, her lashes dominating the delicacy of her face.

"I thought this all ended after you took the Hunter's Exam. We thought it was a childish whim you'll grow out of," continued her mother.

"We've gone through this already, mother," Senritsu said, her voice low so as not as to seem too disrespectful. "People risk their lives to be Hunters for as long as they live."

"And for what? To run off with ruffians and vagrants in search for lost treasure and chase idiotic fantasies-?" Her mother was trying to suppress her burst of emotion, but before she could continue, Senritsu's father held up a hand to interrupt her.

"You will go to the University by November as planned. I don't want any more questions. I don't want you disobeying. I don't want you talking back. And most of all, I don't want you risking your life for such nonsense again." He leaned on his armchair and flicked his cigar. "You may go now, Senritsu."

It took a moment for Senritsu to stand up. She felt herself shaking from stifled words she left unsaid. Her small hands still gripped the crumpled velvet of her skirt. She lifted her eyes only to say a "Goodnight, father. Goodnight, mother," before she promptly walked through the study door. When she knew she was out of earshot, she ran into her room, her shoes pounding on the marbled floor noisily, and the shadows of the house watched her.

* * *

_All children, except one, grow up._

That was a line Senritsu remembered from a fairy tale she read as a child. At that moment, she wished she were that child who never grew up. "A childish whim," was what her mother said. As long as she was a child, they would think that everything she did was fleeting and temporary—and they would let her do what she wanted, because eventually those whims would disappear as soon as she grew older. Now that she was older and very near womanhood, _and_ had not outgrown her "childish whims," there was more than alarm that clutched at her parents.

But she was glad she was not alone.

Hika Peisinoe was more or less a childhood friend who moved in next door when she was nine. Senritsu had been playing her violin in a study very unlike the one she had just met her parents in. She had been under the clumsy playing of someone still trying to get hold of a new instrument. A crumpled ball of paper came flying into the study that afternoon, right at her feet. She was nine and as curious as a bee; she hastily picked up the crumpled paper, realized that it came from the open window next door, and she unfolded it to read it.

_You play horribly_, said the note.

Senritsu had pouted, and on the other side of the paper, with a scrawl of righteous wrath in green crayon, she wrote something back. She threw it across the window as it landed next door from whence the paper came.

A boy of about eleven emerged from the window—lanky, freckled, and brown-haired, with the biggest blue eyes she had ever seen on a young human being. The boy seemed livid with what she had written back on the paper. She had noted with satisfaction with how the boy balefully glared at her as he shot out his tongue. She thought that she had won the fight, then, until her mother had introduced her to his mother and him.

Children were children. They would hate each other at one moment, and then play again at the next. It was no different for Senritsu and Hika.

"So you think you can play the violin better than me?" Senritsu asked in her sing-song voice.

"Yeah! Naturally!" beamed Hika.

Senritsu scrunched her nose. "Prove it, then!"

And he did. He had started taking lessons when he was four, and simply because he had admired an errant uncle who had played the same instrument to him when he was but a toddling thing. His parents let him have lessons because he had admired his uncle so much to an extent that one day he even threatened to run off with his uncle in his "world tours as a renowned musician." In order to shush him, they let him have his lessons, and he had agreed not to run away from home.

Hika was seventeen now. While he had not taken the Hunter Exam ("it's for desperate people trying to find their place in this world," was his opinion of it, and Senritsu had not spoken to him for weeks), he still thought himself to be at her level, if not slightly higher. He himself would be going to a prestigious University in a year, but that was where the similarities _somewhat_ ended. Senritsu abhorred the thought of being chained to academics for four years or more in a manner she had little control of; Hika, on the other hand, decided that it was inevitable, and still had about a year to think about it before setting his mind entirely to it.

They were by the swing sets which Senritsu's father had installed for her when he was still an adoring man to his daughter. The trees and vines obscured the view of everything else around them, so they were wrapped in its cool shade under the late afternoon sun.

"What did they want you to be?" Senritsu asked of Hika.

Hika shrugged. "A lawyer."

Senritsu scoffed.

"Hey, it might not be too bad! I also had an uncle who's a lawyer. My dad's side this time. He's saved lives, you now. He had clients who were on death row."

Senritsu absently nodded.

"It's the least I can do, since you've got a Hunter's License and can practically do anything and be everything," said Hika defensively. He was standing on one of the swings; Senritsu sat on the other. The chains creaked; the wind blowed.

Senritsu scoffed again. "That would have made more sense if my parents actually let me use it." She stared blankly at the sky above her. A small blimp hovered overhead, trailing white smoke.

"Well, I still don't understand why you went straight home after the Exam. You could've just made of and run away, you know?"

"Lovely advice from a good friend," remarked Senritsu.

"That's a fact. I know you, Sen."

"Oh, do you?"

"Well, maybe not as much because I still don't understand why you decided to play dutiful daughter all of a sudden."

Senritsu was silent for a moment.

"You're really going to the University next year, Hika?" she asked.

The boy nodded matter-of-factly. "I don't have to like it right away, Sen. But I'll get there."

"Oooh look at that, you sounding so mature and all," jeered Senritsu in her sweet, soft voice. Sometimes it frustrated her that she wouldn't express jest and fury as potently as she wanted because her voice soothed the negativity and frolic out of her intentions.

Hika made an unappealing, airy sound between his teeth. "And what did your parents want you to be?"

Senritsu honestly didn't know. "Scholar. Engineer. Bookkeeper. Who knows? Anything _but_ a musician and a Hunter." There was a hint of bitterness in her voice.

"You can always decide what you want to be when you're older. Right now, just do what they want, let them get what they want, and then after that, get what _you_ want…" Hika trailed off, unsure whether Senritsu would agree to the prospect or not.

The girl didn't. "A time waster and a life waster."

Hika couldn't help but smile. "You should have just run away, you know, when you had the chance."

Senritsu furrowed her brows. She wanted to glare at her friend, although she knew Hika would just ignore it.

"But your conscience wouldn't let you, would it?" Hika then turned to her with knowing airs. "Then that's your own problem to solve, Sen."

The conversation ended there, as they were both called to dinner.

Sweet Senritsu. That's how everyone knew her. That's how everyone wanted to know her. Maybe Hika knew her differently—he was the only person in the world Senritsu kicked at when he would tease her as little children. He was the only one who knew of Senritsu's eager, competitive streak as they had the habit of challenging each other as children, from who would climb the higher tree to who played the piano better. Her mother disagreed with her tomboyish ways but once again, she dismissed it as "childish whims." In a way, her challenges with Hika developed her endurance and stubbornness that aided her through the Hunter Exam.

That, and her strange ability.

"You've such a wild imagination, dear," her mother once said when she took note of the dragon-like creatures Senritsu drew for her one day. "Is it from the books your father gave you?"

"No."

"Where, then?"

Senritsu shrugged.

Her mother seemed rather bothered for a moment, before turning to her daughter again and saying, "Mother wants you to draw some flowers for her, dear. Can you do that?"

Senritsu shrugged again, but she did draw her mother flowers in bold, frivolous colors that made them seem like bursting fireworks instead of flowers. But they were indeed flowers, of a sort her mother hand not seen before.

Her parents had once taken her to see "a nice lady." It was only years after when Senritrsu realized that they had taken her to a psychiatric office. She was all of seven, but it seemed that her parents wanted to stomp out a virulent mind-bug in her before it grew. Her mother had shown the "nice lady" her various outlandish drawings. The lady then nodded.

"This is not unusual for a child her age," said the lady.

"Do you think she'll outgrow it?" asked her father. At that time he still wore light grey suits instead of the usual dark coffee or black.

The lady had taken her glasses off, and had looked Senritsu straight in the eye. It was a friendly glance, nothing more. "Children usually do," she replied. She smiled at Senritsu, then back at her parents.

"Let her draw. There's something special in each child that only needs to be discovered. If this is what makes her happy, let her draw."

She was a nice lady.

But she never saw the nice lady again.

Senritsu, at seven, had two words stuck in her head: _something special_. If letting her do what she wanted made her discover what that was, then she was going to go through it for all it was worth.

She gave drawing up soon after for music lessons. It was in the music lessons when she realized that she could do something no other person can. She had only done it twice before taking the Hunter Exam, and once during the Hunter Exam, and everything was explained to her after she had passed the exam.

She had played a Pegasus to life one morning. It all stemmed from a painting of a white horse which hung on the study wall, but she wanted it to fly, and knew what it was called, so a Pegasus came as she played the violin. When the strings played, it was as if she were talking to them: _Give it wings, give it wings, give it wings._

The room had changed; she was soon on top of a waterfall, and there was the winged white horse perched atop a cliff in all its glory. It stomped once, twice, and then she was back in her study again, the empty study with nothing but the sofas, the piano, and a wash of music sheets.

"I want stars to fall," she whispered to her flute at another time. Warmth spread through her body; there was a slight buzzing in her ears, and as she expected, the inkiness in her room melted and there were tiny dots twinkling upon her feet.

During the Hunter Exam, she had brought a tiny panpipe. She now had developed the ability to play any musical instrument that came within her reach, which revealed to her that she was a prodigy in that field. _Something special_; the words rang into her head. She had been surrounded by fellow exam participants—they were at each other's throats. It was a Battle Royale of sorts and there were limited rules, but for as long as they can get from one gate to another, they should be fine. They would pass and move on to the next stage.

She remembered the drawings for her mother—the dragons, the basilisks, the twisted angels. "Come to me," she whispered in her mind, and she had played the panpipe—she had her eyes closed, so apart from her music, she heard roars, and shrieks, gasps, and screams, and sounds of bodies scuffling away desperately. She opened her eyes to a wide, open field, and she had run to the next gate without further interference.

Not long after the Hunter Exam, a teacher came to her: a man neither young nor old, and explained to her that she was an Emitter. "Be careful," he had said. "Imagination is a powerful thing." He had smiled, and had deliberately ordered her to return home, which she obliged, wondering if the teacher had been a Manipulator. He was not. He was also an Emitter.

Now all of this she has to throw away, because her parents had astutely, gravely given her their last word. _It's time to put away these fantasies. It's time to stop the madness before it goes too far. It's time to be more responsible. It's time to grow up._

* * *

"Imagination dies as you grow older," Hika told her, his face holding a funny expression. "You'd have to work harder for it, then."

"So what happened to _your_ imagination?" Senritsu mildly quipped.

"Hey, I'm only two years older than you. Maybe when I'm a lawyer, it'll completely disappear."

"Is imagination really a bad thing?"

Hika's lips twisted into a silly smile. "Not really."

Senritsu felt that a lump formed itself in her throat, but she remained as casual as a lady out to tea. "I guess it's really nice to imagine you and Isobel together, right?"

A week before, Hika had mentioned in passing that he had met a "cute girl" in the park when he was running errands for his mother. Her name was Isobel; she was a year older than him, she sometimes worked at a café nearby, and taught kindergarten children. Senritsu noted the dull nature of Isobel's life, compared to that of what a Hunter's could be, and wondered what Hika found so interesting in her other than her face. At that moment, she almost considered going to the University if only to get away from Hika and his lovesickness. For a while, she had resented Hika, and she was not entirely sure why.

"Hmmm?" Hika then turned to her upon mention of Isobel's name. Like a twitter-pated fool, he dumbly nodded. Senritsu shook her head. She wanted winged horses and lions that breathed fire. She wanted steam ships that floated many leagues under the sea, and an army of sirens singing a war song at the top of their lungs. While Hika—silly Hika, stupid Hika—all he wanted was to be with one girl he barely knew.

"Isobel says that she'll also move to the city and maybe go to University soon after," Hika said, unbidden. "That's when I'll be at University. Is that a great coincidence, or what?"

Senritsu sighed and rolled her eyes. She was not about to hear Hika's own version of his life's fantasies. "Yes, imagination is a bad thing." She got up from her swing (as they usually talked in the afternoons by the swing set) and was running back into her home when Hika ran after her.

"Senritsu!"

"What?"

"Are you mad?"

"Hmph."

Then, with a hint of jibe, "Are you jealous?"

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"Then why are you mad?"

She thought before replying. Wordlessly, she took out the flute from within her dress pockets—it had been a habit, so far, to take a musical instrument with her wherever she went, even when she was just within the house. With a look of amusement towards her friend, she began to play.

Hika stiffened at first. He backed away from Senritsu a little, not knowing really what to expect. Suddenly, a strange smell of animal pelt filled the air. And then there it was—the growling.

Senritsu heard Hika's surprised scream—it was surprise rather than fear—when a huge, black panther emerged from thin air and landed on top of the astonished boy. The animal was too huge to be just an ordinary panther. The creature rumbled on top of him, its snake-like eyes bearing into Hika's before it leapt away once more, into thin air. As if nothing happened, everything returned to normal—the smell of late spring, the sound of birds, the low hum of a blimp flying overhead.

Hika was panting, looking more like a ragdoll than a teenage boy on the ground, eyes wildly scanning the area for more otherworldly creatures to pounce on him. He only returned to his senses at Senritsu's light giggle. With a trail of indignation, he shot up from the ground with a confused and poisonous glare at her.

"You used your Nen on me!" he said to her shrilly.

"So? I never said I wouldn't." Senritsu smiled good-naturedly, and a bit wickedly.

"Well, I'm your friend and friends don't use Nen on their friends—"

"Says the lawyer."

"You're angry, Sen! Admit it!" Hika cried, still confused.

"No, I'm not."

Senritsu suppressed another giggle and was about to enter her home when Hika piped in, "But—"

The girl turned to him, rather perplexed.

"I have to admit," said Hika finally, scuffing a shoe. "That was pretty cool." He grinned at her.

Senritsu tried to keep a straight face. "I know," she simply replied, and disappeared through the door, but not without hearing Hika calling at her, "Show off!" and running off with a light-hearted step.

_Children grow up someday_, Senritsu thought, her heart pumping from Hika's praise. She then calmed down. _But not today._

Not today.

* * *

**A/N: ** I'm sure Bai-Feng has her own version of Hika which she had mentioned in some of her stories. ^^ I really found his character interesting so I took some liberties. xD

Also, the line "all children, except one, grow up" is the first line from J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan." :)

This story will simply be in two or three parts, so I don't have to dwell so much on this, I think. Hehe.

Send in those reviews, luvs!

Cheers!

DW-chan :3


	2. Two: Running Away

***HxH Disclaimer***

**Author's Notes:** Hmmm, so the first chapter is still a bit fluffy… it feels like a cute teddy bear with dead glass eyes of some sort. Teehee. I'm editorializing. xD Anyway, now I'm not entirely sure how long this fic will go; I might stop at three chapters or four, or five. Maybe five. Oh bother it, the fic will cross its own bridge (which reminds me, "Bridge to Being" might resume after a quite a while… again. Ehehe.) when it gets there. ^^;;;

Thanks to Bai-Feng (high five, luv!) and a guest reader for reviewing/commenting on my story so far. ^^

I changed the title, by the way. The old one was quite a mouthful. :P

* * *

Of Dreams and Nightmares  
By: DW-chan

_**Two: Running Away**_

Hika had run away from home.

That was the first news Senritsu heard on Saturday morning, as she sat at the breakfast table, dumbfounded. Her hands were frozen, and when the shock wore off, she felt anger like a tiny creature, claws exposed, scraping at her heart.

Hika had followed his own advice to her; he had taken that step first, and one morning he just vanished without a note to his family, without a trace. He did not even bring his things with him. It can even be said that he was kidnapped, but Senritsu knew the truth. Her intuition for Hika had always been strong.

"Will they call the police?" she asked of her mother, who bore the news to her.

"They already did," was her mother's grim reply. The woman was standing by the mantelpiece across the table, looking rather unkempt and tired.

"And?"

"Nothing."

"It's only been two hours," Senritsu insisted. "Hika wouldn't have gone that far—"

"Child, what do you know?" her mother flared all of a sudden; she then hurriedly walked to her daughter, her eyes sharp. "You wouldn't have anything to do with Hika running away, would you?"

Senritsu was aghast. "No! No, don't!" She felt a lump in her throat. Once upon a time, at the back of her mind, she had thought of running away, too—Hika had known about it, hence he teased her about it constantly, especially a few days before. Now, she felt what it was like to be abandoned, left behind, and by an unlikely culprit. She had thought Hika wanted to attend University. A fleeting, bitter thought scrolled through her mind. _Maybe he's eloped with Isobel_, but she nearly laughed aloud at the thought. She shook the notion away.

"Well, you were the last person he's talked with," her mother prodded on.

"Didn't he speak with his parents before he went to bed?"

"Don't get smart on me, young lady. Mrs. Peisinoe mentioned that he hadn't said a word to her or to his father the entire day yesterday."

"Well, I can't read Hika's mind!" Senritsu did not feel like arguing with her mother.

Her mother, thankfully, heaved a sigh and made her retreat to the mantelpiece again. She placed a pale hand to her forehead. "Finish your breakfast," she told Senritsu. "And when the police comes to talk to you, tell them the truth."

"What-?"

Her mother shook her head helplessly. "You will have to talk to them, Senritsu. Tell them what Hika had talked to you about. I don't know what it is, but tell them."

Senritsu sat there, losing her appetite, feeling outraged, even empty. She felt one of her hands clench into a tight fist. She wanted to hate Hika more than ever. A part of her wished that he had told her, and had let her known why. But Hika must have known as well that the police would come to her doorstep and speak with her: she, the dutiful daughter.

The police did pay a visit, and Senritsu hardly memorized their nondescript faces. They were simply men doing what had to be done. For a moment she felt some sympathy for the uniformed specters who asked her questions. Like them, she was simply doing what must be done. She had not run away. She had not used her Hunter's License. She would be going to University at the end of the year.

"He said he was going to University," Senritsu conferred to one of the officers, a man with pale eyes. "He wanted to be a lawyer. That's what he said. I had no idea, no idea at all, that he would run away."

"Do you think your friend has run into bad company?" asked the man.

Senritsu shook her head. "None that I know of." It was true. Hika was a seventeen-year-old boy, and he must have been getting weary of his childhood life. He may have run into bad company, and she hadn't known. The thought grated at her. She was a now but a remnant of his childhood, and she was discarded, just like that.

"Alright. Is there anything you would like to add, miss?" asked the officer once more.

Senritsu wordlessly shook her head. Her huge eyes with her thick, dark lashes glanced up at the man for a moment. She knew that she must have looked guiltless and harmless.

The officer stood up, tipped his cap to her, and then to her mother, and he, along with two other policemen, took their leave. She sat there in silence for a while.

"I don't know why, but I believe your father will be furious when he finds out," her mother said. It was her mother's nervous habit to chew at her fingernails, even at her age.

"But why? I didn't do anything—"

"Your father is who he is, Senritsu." The auburn-haired woman sat beside her daughter on the cushioned oaken couch, but with some distance apart, and with little fondness. "You know he has never been the same ever since you became a godsforsaken Hunter, at your age, with the breeding we raised you in."

"I thought we had talked about this, mother." Senritsu felt the heat rise up her cheeks.

"We gave you everything," her mother went on. All of a sudden, the morning held a gloom that shrouded the two occupants of the house. "But you gave us misery."

"That's not fair, mother! You had let me take the Exam!" the girl spurted out, feeling the injustice twist at her insides.

"We shouldn't have," replied her mother, her voice choking. "That was wrong of us."

"What difference does it make?" Senritsu returned. "Ever since I got my Hunter's License, you had taken it from me, and kept it somewhere I don't know. I've stayed home for two years since the Exam." She breathed deeply. "You have no right to accuse me of making you miserable! I have only been a good girl!"

Her mother had grabbed at her arm; it was not painful, but Senritsu felt her mother's fingers tremble with her grasp, which lessened the force of an otherwise brash gesture. "You will not raise your voice at me." Her mother managed to suppress her tone. She released Senritsu almost immediately, as if her own child burned her. "Go to your room, and wait until your father gets home."

"I have lessons. Miss Shari will be here soon—"

"I've called Miss Shari. She will not be coming in today. Now, go to your room, and stay there."

Senritsu felt the rebel within her simmer. "If you hate me," she told her mother, slowly, so that the woman caught every word, "let me know. Just let me know. And I won't be a bother to you anymore." She turned away and left, her heels echoing once more on the marbled floor. She didn't want to feel the guilt that seeped its way into her heart after she said those words to her mother. She was beginning to tire of being the sweet, dutiful Senritsu.

She was passing the study on the way to her room when something like a twinge, like small pinpricks of air, tugged at the back of her neck. She gasped and looked about; if a ghost had icy fingers and touched her, that was what it had felt like. She stopped on her tracks, nevertheless, and before she knew it, she found her way to the darkness of the study. The drapes were down; the air was musty. She tried not to make a sound as she pattered further into the room. Then her foot caught at something. Instantaneously, she looked down.

On the floor was a crumpled piece of paper.

A foreboding pulled at her. She looked around for a moment, assuring herself that her mother wasn't nearby and watching; she stooped down to retrieve the paper and unfolded it.

_Sable Chapel at Winter Road_, the note said.

Senritsu looked up to the sound of a gust of wind; she noticed that the drapes of one of the windows began to hover and flap ever so slightly. Senritsu stealthily ran to it, and she reached out and felt cold air. She looked out: the window was open a tiny crack. From the fogged glass, she looked across to the window next door. She was not certain how Hika managed to be the daredevil and climb two floors so that he could toss the paper into the study, but that soon dissipated from her mind. Hika had let her known where he was. Sable Chapel was more than five miles away from home.

Was Hika… hinting at her to follow him?

She tucked the piece of paper into one of her dress pockets, burying it deep. She left the study just as she had entered it: quiet as a mouse, stealthily as a shadow. She stayed in her room, but she did not wait for her father.

* * *

She had lied. She knew were her Hunter's License was. It was kept in a vault under her parents' bed. She had never attempted to take it until now; somehow she knew her parents checked nearly every night if the License was still safe in its iron tomb. However, now that she would be gone and far away by the time her parents checked again, she had taken it back. She did not steal it. She was simply claiming what was hers.

That, and her freedom.

She had only brought a few necessities with her: it had gotten strangely colder for spring, so she took her mantle, a single change of clothing, and then she took her flute. That was all. She did not even bring food or drink. She knew where she was going, and she knew that Hika would still be there, waiting for her.

_Sable Chapel at Winter Road._

She had waited for the sun to set before she snuck out of the house. Her mother had been in the study, reading a book, with a glass of wine beside her. The headiness of the drink probably dulled her senses as she didn't even notice her daughter flit from her room, down the stairs, and out the door. Senritsu was small for age, and light for her age; she could easily pass for a child of twelve. In a crowd of people, she was practically invisible. In a near-empty house, it seemed no different.

Now, she was hurrying down a road that was full of cherry blossom trees. They were in bloom, and petals rained around her, but in a night when hardly a moon peeked through the sky, it seemed as though she were treading on withered leaves the size of thumbnails.

If she walked faster, she would reach Sable Chapel before midnight. The air around her begun to freeze; she grabbed her mantle tighter around her face, masking her cheeks. She wondered where the iciness came from; it was uncharacteristically present in the closing of April. Her breath swirled around her in a milky white vapor.

Sable Chapel was as dark as a mausoleum. The only lights she noted where the small fingers of candlelight within the chapel's recesses, reflecting the faces of the statues of saints with a wash of dull orange. The place was closed for the night. A grilled iron gate surrounded the perimeter of the chapel. She approached gingerly, wondering where Hika might be.

She looked about as she made her way at the back of the chapel cautiously, the cold and the darkness biting at her. When she was in the dark, and she could only hear herself breathing, she managed to whisper sharply: "Hika?"

She waited for a moment before calling again. "I got your note. Hika?"

There was a sound like flapping wings that surrounded her, and Senritsu tensed and was about to strike whatever threat managed to get to her when a gloved hand closed upon her mouth. She continued to tense and her eyes were wide; a second later, she heard a familiar voice: "Senritsu."

She hadn't forgotten her anger. With surprising strength, she tore the hand that covered her mouth away, and turned to the prowler. It was, indeed, Hika; even in the gloom she could make out the brightness of his eyes, very much like a cat's reflecting light in the darkness.

"You dirty, lying, good-for-nothing—" Senritsu began.

Hika had moved a little to the brightness, between candlelight and muted moonlight, and he seemed rather beleaguered, more so than she. "What?" he whispered sharply. "If I told you, the plan would've been ruined."

"What plan?" Senritsu whispered back, indignantly.

"_This_ plan that had worked so far," Hika reasoned, his white, vapored breath trailing from him at all sides.

"You'd planned to run away all this time!" Senritsu wanted to assert her righteous anger.

"I was hoping you'd run away first, so I'd follow," Hika told her matter-of-factly.

"Are you saying that—"

"You've had it in you all that time. You're a Hunter. I know that Hunters don't like being caged in for long."

Senritsu stopped short. She realized that Hika was right: about the nature of Hunters, and that she had all the ability and every opportunity to run away sooner than she had.

Senritsu wanted to hit Hika hard, if only in her mind. "Did you run away for my sake? You knew I'd follow you if you'd let me know where you were."

Hika made a face. "Now don't be too assuming, Sen! I did it for me, too."

"I thought you wanted to go to University and be a nice, fancy lawyer!"

"Plans change."

"That fast?"

Hika sighed and slowly shook his head. "I had every prospect to be in charge of my life when I wanted. I only thought being a lawyer was fine because it was practically placed before me on a silver platter. I… never really wanted it."

"A-ha!" cried Senritsu through clenched teeth.

"You know my parents! They're—"

"Like mine," Senritsu finished for him.

"Worse."

"Well, I wonder what could've happened if _you_ wanted to take the Hunter Exam too."

"They'll lock me up in a Seminary cell, where I will never see the light of day, and that's a promise." There was frustration and surety in his voice.

Senritsu was still quietly infuriated. "I had thought you've run into bad company, or eloped with Isobel…"

Hika let out a small laugh. "Would I wish. Isobel would've wanted a lawyer. Since I won't be a lawyer anymore—"

"Well, you can always turn back."

"Would _you_ turn back?" Hika challenged her.

Senritsu thought for a moment, but she knew the answer. She shook her head.

"Then it's settled," said Hika.

Senritsu rubbed the cold from her mittened hands. "So… now what? We're out in the cold and we've forsaken our homes forever and ever. Was freezing to death part of your plan?"

Hika looked at her with traces of a scowl. "Did you bring money?"

Senritsu blinked. "Well, a little."

"Enough to last you a week or more?"

"I can't say."

"For all the-! You're a Hunter and you come unprepared…!"

"Well, do you have money?"

"Yeah, yeah of course! Now I'll have to share it with you, you silly dolt."

"If you're going to call me names, we might as well end this plan and return home." She was only half-serious.

"All right, all right, I'm sorry. There's an inn not far from here."

"Can we risk it? The police might have gotten as far as here looking for you… and now, maybe looking for me, too."

"Then there's another inn in the next town about ten miles away. You'd wanna walk that?"

"I'd walk it." Senritsu was resolute. The obstinate, bull-headed part of her would rather freeze walking her way to freedom, rather than sit in a warm place where they would possibly be caught and brought home kicking and screaming. The dignity of dropping lifeless on the road seemed more appealing at that moment.

"I won't carry you when you're tired."

"I'm not asking you to."

There was a small rush of wind, and the crispy sound of dry leaves filled the air. One of the candle flames was snuffed out. The place was nearly wrapped in total darkness. The two youngsters looked about them; somewhere, owls made their doleful sounds.

"Let's go."

* * *

Senritsu had itched to use her Hunter License as she knew that it would cover her and Hika's expenses in a heartbeat, and Hika didn't have to spend any of his money at all, unless he needed to. However, she was still playing safe. If ever the police were keen enough in getting this far—sharp, dutiful people that they were—they would be looking for a young girl with a Hunter License. Auburn-haired, small statured, with huge hazel eyes. Possibly travelling with a companion, a teenage boy.

For a moment, she though she missed her parents—her beautiful mother's face, and the smell of tobacco and musky cologne on her father. Then the thoughts flitted away as quickly as they came. Hika, on the other hand, seemed comfortable in his own skin. He had mentioned that he hadn't run into bad company and yet there he was, smoking a pipe—he funnily looked like one of those raggedy boys in old tales that ran around the city like little street rats. Hika was clearly underage, and yet there he was, and Senritsu itched to snatch the apparatus away from her friend.

They had agreed that Senritsu sleep on the bed while he slept at the cot by the window. There was no malice between them; only a sense of fellow-feeling, a camaraderie which had grown in their years of friendship. Hika, right now, was not on the cot; he was perched by the open window, taking a whiff from his pipe.

"Is that your father's?" Senritsu whispered from under the covers.

"Huh?" Hika raised the pipe. "This? Nah. It's my uncle's."

"The lawyer?"

"No, the musician."

Senritsu thought for a while before she said, "You plan to follow in his footsteps?"

Hika took another whiff before replying. "He's a free soul. He did what he wanted. There are people who hate him, and there are people who love him, and yet there he is, all happy and fulfilled."

"So you do want to be like him."

Hika turned to her, tendrils of smoke hovering around him. "I want to be like _me_. Now go to sleep."

"Hmph."

She heard Hika clear his throat. "Sen?"

"Don't talk to me; I'm asleep."

Hika heaved a breath. "I was just going to ask if you'd go your own way someday. You know, to be a Hunter and all. Find treasure, look for adventure, be a philanthropist… those things."

"I think I would. But I'd like to be a musician too."

"Until then, tagteam?" There was a hint of a smile in Hika's voice.

"Tagteam."

Then silence reigned over the two youngsters; dawn had already begun to rise. The sun seemed less jubilant as it slowly emerged from the gloom. A cloud passed over the window; Hika had lain now on his cot, and was fast asleep. There were no birds in the sky. The flowers bloomed, but they swung desolately in their stalks under the grey expanse.

It began to rain.

* * *

**A/N: **I think this'll get more depressing as the story goes on. :3 I'd say, "naturally." ^^;;

Bai-Feng's version of Hika is, I believe, someone in his twenties. In my version, he and Senritsu will remain in their teenage years. Let's see how this works out. ^^

Drop in those reviews! I highly appreciate them. :)

Cheers!

DW-chan :3


	3. Three: Sworn To Silence

***HxH Disclaimer***

**Author's Notes:** I'm no musician at all, but the characters I'm writing about are musicians, so this might be a little tricky for me. ^^;; I won't be using any sophisticated terminology of any sort unless it really really calls for it. xD Until then, I'll just scribble away. ^^

Thanks to Nispedana and Bai-Feng for reviewing! :D I do a happy dance! :3

And hmmm I've done a rough outline of the story, and I would reach about 7-8 chapters. :P There goes my initial 3-parter idea. ^^;;; Also, the story will progressively go darker as I've mentioned before, so if there's a need, I may be changing the rating or indicating a raised rating mid-way, to T.

* * *

Of Dreams and Nightmares  
By: DW-chan

_**Three: Sworn to Silence**_

The town of Nima was going to have a fair, and they wanted to see the fireworks.

It had been scarcely four days since Senritsu and Hika ran away, and been on the run ever since, past three more towns for two days, and a night across the sea to the town of Nima, a hundred miles away from home.

They could be hardly called children, and yet that was what they were, turning their heads left and right in wonder, now that they were finally free of their shackled, stifled lives. There seemed to be no regrets. Not once did they mention University again, the swing set, the study, their parents, their old lives—like a fading dream. All of a sudden, the world was a vast, endless horizon: they could do what they wanted, go where their hearts fancied, when they fancied it; and now, they wanted to see the fair.

The troubadours would be there—traveling poets and minstrels to entertain passerby; there would be carousels, and Ferris wheels, colored canvas tents, jugglers, fire breathers, candy booths, and of course, the fireworks.

"We gotta look for work too, you know," reasoned Hika. He was hoping that he could, perhaps, join the troubadours, even as he struggled with his poetry.

Senritsu looked up from her cotton candy, swirled in various colors, a striking contrast against her dark, blood-red satin dress. "Well, I'm a Hunter," she said coolly, taking a bite from the candy. "I'll do fine."

"Well, I can't be your parasite. And you've only been alone once in your life, during the Hunter Exam. You'll have to come with _me_," persisted the boy.

Senritsu shrugged, barely paying attention to her companion when the fair finally turned on all its colored lights, like garlands of tiny, glowing insects. She marveled at them for a while as they reflected into her hazel eyes, now like black agates. Night had settled in, and the fair had already come to life. People began to pour in swarms. Music was blaring in all corners, each one playing a different tune, so a delightful cacophony of sorts filled the air.

"What time will the fireworks happen?" Senritsu asked.

"You weren't listening to me," bemoaned Hika, huffing over his shoulder a small pack of belongings he had recently purchased for himself and Senritsu.

"We can talk later," said Senritsu. "So when will the fireworks happen?"

Hika looked at the flyer handed to him at the fair entrance by a small man with a harlequin hat. "Eight, it says."

"We've two hours to spare!" Senritsu pointed out excitedly. Like a small child, she tugged at Hika's tartan sleeve.

"Not the carousel. It's for babies," Hika prompted, pronouncing _babies_ with a mockingly sing-song voice.

"The troubadours! I thought you wanted to see them?"

"Wait, wait, I'll have to tie my shoe."

"Be quick about it! I think they're about to start."

Hika seemed to be ever so slightly annoyed at Senritsu's childish behavior; she looked like twelve, so she's acting like twelve! He sighed as he bent down to tie his shoelaces, undoing them both so that he can tighten them up again in proper knots.

He dusted his knee and was about to straighten up when something caught his eye. Among a dozen tents set up on the fair grounds, only one tent had its flap closed, and it was the least lit; one can say that it brought attention to itself by simply being the dreariest thorn in a candied rosebush.

Hika turned to locate where Senritsu was; she was a few feet away, by one of the booths that seemed to be peddling oddments for young ladies; she was trying on a hat and peering through a mirror.

_Curiosity kill that cat_, Hika thought, but after having all the freedom he ever wanted for the past few days, all he wanted to do was _be_ the cat. He tried to be inconspicuous enough as he lithely tiptoed his way to the tent. He had his tongue in between his lips like a little boy enjoying a ruse that he was about to make. When he was close enough with the tent, he reached out, and threw the flap open.

There was barely any light in the tent, but in the darkness he could make out the figure of a man seemingly in jittery alarm; he moved forwards and backwards—one moment, he was bent over a table appearing to wipe something off it, and at another moment, he was clutching at his hair in a frenzy. When he heard the sound of the tent flap open, like a frightened bird, he propelled his body to face Hika's direction.

"The good Lord help me…" the man was muttering when he noticed Hika; and the boy, bewildered, peered further into the tent and tried to work out what the man was fussing over on the table.

Hika's eyes grew wide; the light seemed to shine directly upon the open-eyed face of a man that lay upon the table; the man's mouth was slightly agape, and blood was pouring down from of it. Further down the man's abdomen was a hilt of a blade, and it had impaled the man through; the rest of the blade seemed to be buried into the man's flesh and into the table's wood. Hika was looking at a man freshly slain.

"I-it was an accident…" the man continued to mutter, high-pitched and piteous. He seemed to be in shock, he was shaking all over, his eyes were glazed, and he was sobbing and wailing as quietly as he could, lest anyone from the outside would hear. "We were supposed to… to open the tent and… but… but we had a fight, you see, my brother always had a temper, he would beat me, and…"

Hika couldn't find the words in his throat. He couldn't even make a sound. He stood there, stricken with a sort of paralysis, and the man, the murderer, was coming to him, tottering to him. Hika gasped and was about to take heel and run when the man caught his shoulders.

"No, no, no, don't, don't tell anyone! Please don't. It was an accident! An accident!" wailed the man; he was shaking Hika, and the boy didn't know what to do with the desperate, hollow presence before him.

Hika then found his voice, and it sounded so choked that he sputtered out the words, "I-I won't tell, mister. I won't tell." He tried to pry the man's hands off himself.

"You promise?" besought the man, with an iron grip still on the boy.

Hika nodded, hair falling to his eyes. "I promise."

"Promise?" the man repeated; his voice was harsher this time, and he shook Hika once more.

"I promise!"

The man released Hika and the boy stood there for a moment, realizing that the man had left smears of bloody handprints on his shoulders and arms. The world seemed to narrow and sway before Hika's vision, and the boy bolted out the tent.

Under the mixed lights and the shadows, Hika realized for the shortest second as he looked down his sleeves and hands that the blood seemed like tar or dark paint. It didn't look like blood, no, not in this light. He was out in the open again, and Senritsu was there suddenly, in front of him, and she was calling his name.

"There you are! I thought you said we ought to stick together?"

Hika wasn't sure if he wanted to look Senritsu in the eye. He dragged his gaze to the lights of the carousel somewhere to his right when he spoke. "Um, sorry. You know, had to do… business." He cleared his throat.

"You've gotten all filthy! Did you get into a fight?"

Hika defensively tried to cover the stains on his shirt. "No! Of course not. I was… I slipped on a wall with wet paint. That's all." He tried to sound so much like himself, a Hika without a care in the world.

"Well, it's a good thing you bought some clothes back at the Nima center. Those stains look bad."

"Bother the stains!" Hika said impatiently, his forehead knotting. "We'll have it washed in the morning, okay?" Hika didn't sound so sure this time. In the back of his mind, he could only think, _they'll find out, the tent's too obvious, it doesn't have any lights on. The people will find out and they'll find the blood on _me_…_ He didn't know Nima's laws. Maybe Senritsu knew, since she may have studied some of the lands' laws as a Hunter. He couldn't see the path before him where Senritsu began to drag him again, and the caterwauling of the fair music only grated in his ears and into his brain.

* * *

The troubadours were performing.

There were seven of them, dressed in wonderfully bright colors that it was almost garish. They were all men but had painted faces, nearly stark white against the dancing lights, which highlighted their exaggerated expressions as they played musical instruments. One of them had an extraordinary singing voice and as six of them played, he flowed between narrating a poem and singing a love song. The musicians alternated between lyres, flutes, whistles, violins, guitars, and tambourines. It was quite a sight. Sentitsu stood there, entranced.

But not Hika. He fidgeted, he checked the time, he rubbed his cold hands, stomped his cold feet. He realized that all of him had turned cold. He thought he smelled the coppery stench of dried blood floating from his skin. He held his head down but his eyes were harrowing back and forth each face on the crowd, wondering if any of them noticed the smell of blood, too.

As the troubadours ended their first performance set, the people clapped and whistled. That made way for the fire dancers and fire breathers, and the crowd beheld the well-practiced routine in awe.

Senritsu was tugging at his arm once more, like a little child. It seemed like all day she had been acting like a little child. Hika ignored the pounding in his head.

"Don't you want to talk to them?"

"Who?" Hika noticed that his voice was hoarse.

"The troubadours! I thought you would have wanted to have a word with them, maybe audition or something so you could join…"

Hika froze where his two feet were planted. "Maybe later. Don't you want to watch the fire breathers?"

"I wanted the fireworks more. Now let's talk to your troubadours." She was beginning to lead him away from the conglomeration of people to the troubadour tent, but his legs were heavy. He refused to budge.

"Sen—"

The girl turned to him, her large, doll-like eyes regarding him with slight puzzlement.

"I think we should go," Hika suggested in a low voice.

"What?" Senritsu called. The music was too loud, the voices of the crowd drowning everything else out.

Hika felt encumbered by too many thoughts at once. He cleared his throat; his voice seemed to be leaving him. "We should go," he declared a bit more loudly.

Senritsu didn't seem upset; rather, she was surprised. "It's not even seven o' clock yet!" She tried scrutinizing his face which was veiled by his golden-brown hair. He drew back.

"Aren't you feeling well?" she asked, genuinely concerned.

Hika still felt the cold on his fingertips, down to his toes. He shivered. He thought for a long moment before he finally said, "Senritsu, I think I need to tell you something—"

Suddenly, there were screams and pandemonium somewhere where the unlit tent stood. Hika swallowed hard. The corpse had been discovered, and he knew the culprit was nowhere to be found.

Hika smelled the blood on him once more. Before he knew it, he was grabbing Senritsu's hand, and with their pack of things in the other, he began to flee out of the fair, taking Senritsu with him.

There were panicked crowds, and there were curious crowds; droves of people seem to drizzle on all sides, all corners, all at once. The two teenagers jostled through, and even as Senritsu failed to understand Hika's sudden need to leave, and leave hurriedly, she complied with where he led both their steps, far away from the fair.

Their shoes hit concrete and cobblestones; the moon was high and the air was beginning to freeze again. Hika and Senritsu ran, hand in hand, farther and farther away from the noise of the fair, until they could hear nothing but the dim reverberations of music as it played on despite the crime scene.

There ran through a tunnel, and then over a bridge, seemingly passing a hundred electric lampposts in the greyness and fog until they reached the outskirts of the Aspen River, which they had finally placed between them and the Nima town fair.

They panted and huffed as they skidded to a halt; Hika seemed more winded, and Senritsu almost immediately was able to talk despite her shortness of breath. White vapor drifted from their noses and mouths once more. It seemed to be getting colder and colder every night, as though they were anticipating snows instead of warmer days.

"What was that? What happened?" Senritsu asked all at once. She had unlocked her grasp from Hika's and was lightly shaking the boy to his senses. "Why'd you run all of a sudde—"

"Don't—" Hika tried to swat Senritsu's hand away; she was tugging at a sleeve where blood had stained it. Now her fingers had traces of blood as well, and she didn't even know.

"Hika…?"

Hika desperately tried to calm himself, to no avail, so he spoke anyway. "There was a murder."

"What!?"

"A murder!"

"At the fair? Is that why the people were all running around and some were screaming…?"

"Yes, yes, someone got murdered in the fair!"

Senritsu was silent for a moment. "How did you know? Did you see what had happened? Who killed who?" Despite her many questions, she did not seem rattled. She was merely trying to get the right information. Hika tried to focus.

"After tying my shoes, I went over and barged into a tent."

"Oh, so that's why you disappeared—!"

Hika made a wild gesture with his free hand, hoping Senritsu would stop interrupting him afterwards. "There was a dead man in there. And there was the man, too, that killed him—"

Senritsu's feathery lashes seemed to quiver as she blinked. "Did you see him kill the man?

Hika shook his head. "But he admitted it. He told me not tell anyone—"

"But you told me."

Hika then nodded. He pulled at his shirt, letting the dark stains show; they were like tiny islands on a map, but that's when Senritsu noticed as well that the patterns on Hika's shoulders were the patterns of hands.

"Hika, is that… blood?"

"It's blood, Sen. He touched me, he was trying to make me shut up about it."

Senritsu was tugging at his hand again. "Hika, we have to get rid of that shirt. We won't have it washed. We'll have to—oh I don't know—throw it maybe on this river, maybe bury it, or burn it…"

In an instant, Hika had placed the pack down on the dew-covered ground. He opened it and tore a fresh shirt from its depths. He began to take off the bloodstained shirt when he heard a rustling from behind them—around them. Senritsu seemed to have heard it as well. She was turning her head confusedly, attempting to pinpoint where the sound came from.

Hika was once again frozen, and even more so when they were earnestly out in the open evening cold.

"Senritsu," Hika whispered; he hoped he heard her.

"Hika," Senritsu whispered back, and he had heard her. "I know."

"We've been followed."

Distractedly, and now feeling his body grow warm and cold at the same time, he replaced the fresh shirt back in the pack. As though in slow motion, he swung the pack over his shoulder once more. He held out his hand. Senritsu took it.

"I think it's _him_."

They fought against gravity as they treaded carefully away from the foliage that surrounded the glade they were in. Behind them, the Aspen River flowed tranquilly, reflecting the moon and the many tree branches that loomed over it, like hundreds of spidery fingers.

"Run."

Their feet met soft earth and slippery grass as they padded through the glade. They had to run back into the street, into the open, where dozens of people and cars could be filling it, and they would disappear amongst them.

But they had not gone a few meters away when Hika felt an inhuman strength grapple at his shoulders. Even in those few seconds he recognized the grip almost immediately. A cry had lodged itself in his throat wouldn't come out. It was Sernitsu's small, startled scream that rang in the darkness, and yet he knew that they were still too far away from a living soul that could hear her.

He was violently dragged back and thrown to the ground. His breath was knocked out of him as his body hit the earth, but he refused to lie there. In an instant, he was struggling to his feet. A hulking figure of a human being charged at him and he met it, full-force. His grip had locked with the grip of his attacker, and he saw the man's face under the moonlight. It was the same man, the murderer, back at the fair.

"You said you wouldn't tell anyone—" choked the man through gritted teeth. Something like a feral growl escaped his throat.

Hika couldn't respond. The man was strong, too strong, and it felt as though Hika were trying to battle a titan with his scrawny seventeen-year-old frame.

"You lied! You lied, you filthy little brat! You lied and I'll—"

A sound of a flute playing filled the air. Hika had sense enough to know that it was coming from Senritsu; the girl was trying to emit a vision throughout them, towards them, but Hika saw nothing. He only saw the mad glint in the man's eyes as they bore down on him, unseeing.

Precipitously, the man's grip on him lessened. Then he was turning his head to find the source of the music. Slowly, like a prowling beast, he turned to Senritsu. In a flash, the man was off him and was on his feet; he was inching his way towards the girl who kept playing, her eyes wide, confused, and Hika knew that whatever Senritsu was trying to work on the man with her music had failed, somehow.

"Why, isn't this the poppet whom you told our little secret to, huh?" the man was growling, and for a moment, he didn't sound human.

"No!" Hika lunged at the man; but the man, seemingly like a monster now, simply held out a hand and with a flick of a wrist, struck the boy across the face. Hika was down again, and this time, it was the scent of his own blood trailing down his nose.

"There's nowhere to run, poppet," the man drawled at Senritsu, a deadly fire in his eyes.

Senritsu was taking a step back, and another, and another. She had stopped playing, knowing that it was futile. She could only emit visions, and it was up to the person's mind to interpret the vision and feel its effects. However, this man was clearly out of his mind. Senritsu felt weak. She hadn't trained enough, hadn't practiced enough, to break the barrier of insanity that imprisoned a lost man's mind. This man was now heading towards her, with clear intent.

Hika was still on the ground, dazed. Blood was freely dripping from his damaged nose. He was not sure it was broken. At that moment, he felt numb to the pain. He knew that the man would kill them both as well before the night was over. He had to act—

Senritsu was running again, and the man followed, speeding towards the girl nearly on all fours, very much like a rabid animal towards his hapless prey.

"Senritsu, run to the open street—"

Insane as the man was, he seemed to know at the same time what he was doing. A savage instinct drove him to corner his prey, and he was compelling the girl further away from any open street and was leading her to no other choice but to climb a rock grotto that loomed high, stemming from a hill across the glade.

Senritsu was agile. She was climbing the grotto with ease. The man was close at her heels. He was going to kill her, and Hika didn't know what else the man was capable of doing before that. With a cry, Hika was on his feet and speeding towards the man, who had only begun to climb as well.

"Get away from her—"

The man, like a machine, struck at him again as though Hika were but a mere fly. Hika dodged it, the man struck; he dodged. Hika wrapped his arms around the man's torso and was trying to grip with all his might and drag the wretched demon down. The man struck once more. He didn't miss.

Hika was on the ground again, and then he was up again, reaching for the man—

But he had disappeared. Hika blinked. Just like that, the monster and Senritsu had climbed over the grotto and had disappeared at its summit.

"Hika!" Senritsu's call sounded so far away.

"Sen!" He was not sure if Senritsu was afraid, or even hurt. He was climbing the grotto, letting his hands skirt through the rock formations as he pulled himself up. The moonlight beat upon his bare head. The moon was bright enough for any happenstance passerby to notice their chase and struggle. Where was everyone? Wasn't there anyone?

Hika finally reached the summit, and wildly searched for both the man and his friend. He spotted their silhouettes under the blue light of the moon. Senritsu was upright, unhurt, her hair whipping around her. The man had cornered her to the edge of a cliff.

The grotto was only a façade to a deep cavern which fell many feet below to a dense forest, and Hika could only see blackness below him, even as he stood a good distance away from the cliff. His eyes darted from the black abyss to the man.

As though a certain madness had overcome him as well, Hika found himself charging at the man at full speed.

The icy air hit his face, and then he felt the solid body of the man against him. He knew that Senritsu would move out of the way. The cliff's mouth was wide enough for her to dodge aside unharmed, and he would just have to make sure that he threw the man into the jaws of darkness far, far below.

"Hika! Stop, let go of him!" he heard Senritsu yell. There seemed to be no traces of fear in her voice, only alarm, like an open wound.

Hika didn't know that he had been closing his eyes until he opened them; and when he did, he found himself at the very tip of the ravine, and the man was there below him, hanging on for dear life as one hand still held the boy's, and another was gripping a jutting rock that was but a few inches away from Hika's face.

"Filthy-!" the man was screaming, growling, and that was the only word the man said that Hika could recognize; the man was lost; here was an animal.

Hika, in vain, tried to pry the man's remaining grip on his hand with all his strength. Hika gasped, gritted his teeth, until he saw sparks play at the back of his eyes. He felt the pain now. His body began to ache, and he knew that he was losing. The man would drag both of them down, down, never to be seen again…

Senritsu was playing once more. It was a different tune, and it sent Hika's skin crawling. He never knew Senritsu could play a piece like that, like the sound of nails scratching a rough surface, like the piercing laughter of a thousand imps. It could've been noise, but it wasn't. There was a certain tune to it, and his blood ran cold.

"Wha—"

Hika opened his eyes despite the pain, and looked down at the man. It was as if a veil had been lifted off the man's eyes and now they were wide, petrified, and his mouth was open as though he had seen a ghost.

_A ghost._

"Brother—" the man began, and he choked, and he tried to speak. No sound came out. The man's eyes were focused yet blank. He was looking above Hika's shoulder. Hika fought to follow the man's gaze. There was no one there.

"It's your fault, brother, your fault—" the man was wailing again, grunting, growling, and that was when Hika noticed that the man's grip was loosening. With renewed strength, Hika pried the man's fingers from his wrist. He succeeded.

Like a lost soul, the man howled as he plunged into the unknown, into to the abyss. An echo of a lifeless thud filled the expanse. There was a flutter of wings, and tiny black birds burst into the sky upon the sound of the impact of body hitting rock. The screaming stopped.

Hika was weary and barely conscious when Senritsu came to his side and aided him to sit up, and then to his feet. The girl was surprisingly strong. She was a Hunter, after all, capable of looking after herself—

"Are you all right?" came Senritsu's voice.

Hika shook the weariness from his eyes. He turned to her. "Are _you_ all right?"

"Yeah."

"Me too."

There was a faint smile on Senritsu's lips. "Now who saved who?"

Hika wanted to roll his eyes. "Shut up, Sen."

"Up you go."

They were carefully making their way down the grotto when all of a sudden, the sky before them lit with bursts of colors, different colors in different sizes, shapes, and dimensions—the fireworks.

"Look at that," Hika said, a hint of bitterness in his voice. "They decided to continue the party after all."

"Business is business," Senritsu said simply. She was supporting Hika, but the boy was trying his manliest best to keep to his feet and his own weight on himself.

But the two children were silent for a while. They watched the fireworks, the fireworks which they had wished to see from the very beginning, and it was not short of what they had expected. The wind carried the sound of claps and cheers of the onlookers a distance away when the show ended.

"Hika," Senritsu's voice suddenly filled the quieting air. "We've killed him."

"Sen?"

"We've killed that man, didn't we?"

"He could've killed _us_, Senritsu. Don't be silly. It was self-defense." Hika felt the pain return to his body. "Self-defense."

Senritsu was silent for a while.

"They'll find the body in the morning."

Hika turned to her, understanding. He nodded. "It's time to leave Nima."

Hika was limping his way beside the girl when a thought popped into his mind. There was something, and he knew that it was not his conscience, that was tugging at him.

"Senritsu?"

"What?"

"Let's not talk about this ever again, okay?"

Senritsu's doll eyes looked at him. "Well…" she was reluctant at first. "Okay."

A lump formed in his throat. "You promise?"

But Senritsu no longer spoke. The girl seemed lost in thought, and she had left Hika's side to walk a small distance in front of him, and she was clutching at her flute. In the shadows of the pale moon, it looked like she was clutching a metal serpent.

* * *

**A/N: **Bring in the violins! Er, I meant, violence… erk. Well, it's been a while since I wrote an "action" sequence. You can call this a quasi-action sequence. There were no ray guns or blasts involved. Also, no cotton candy was harmed during the writing process of this fic.

Whut.

Send in those comments and reviews! ^^

Cheers!

DW-chan :3


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